Tempting the taste buds - Indian and International cuisine for people who love food and cooking!!

March 21, 2008

Rava kesari

Kesari can be made without much pre-planning, especially if you are someone like me, who at times cook on a whim. It is a quick recipe with only a few ingredients, can be made in about 10 minutes and is definitely enough to satisfy your craving for something sweet !! It is a versatile dish which can be made plain, or dressed-up with fried nuts and dry fruits.

Recipe (Serves 5)

Semolina/Rava/Sooji/Wheatlets - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Yellow color - optional

Cashewnuts/Almonds - a few (optional)

Raisins - 1 tbsp (optional)

Method:

Heat the ghee in a pan and fry the nuts until golden brown. Keep aside.

Fry the raisins until they puff up. Keep aside.

In the same ghee, fry the rava until golden brown (approx 5 min on medium heat).

Add the yellow food color to the water.

Reduce the flame to low.

Pour the water into the pan and stir well so that rava is mixed in with the water. (The water will be evaporated in about a minute).

Stir in the sugar and mix well, so that no lumps are formed. Break up the lumps, if any, using a wooden spatula until the mixture is smooth.

Bring up the flame to medium and stir the mixture so that the excess moisture is evaporated and the kesari appears to come together.

Transfer the kesari to a pie-pan (or any other mould) and smooth the top.

Once cooled, transfer the kesari by keeping another plate over the pie-pan and inverting it.

Cut out into desired shapes.

Garnish with fried cashewnuts, almonds and/or raisins.

Tips:

Kesari can be made without the food color, but yellow color makes it more appetizing.

The fried rava will give off a toasted smell and will be golden brown.

Once cooled, the kesari will still be soft, but will hold its shape.

Use dry-ingredients measuring cup for rava and sugar and liquid measuring-cup for water.

Thanks Srilekha, Skribles, EC and Trupti!

Thanks Vani, EC and Trupti

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha!

Thanks Su and Ramya

Thanks Ramya

Thanks Ivy!

Humble beginnings!

I became a fan of cooking blogs when I came to the US because I suddenly found myself to be a home-maker with little knowledge of cooking and a lot of free time on my hands. After a couple of years and experimenting with a lot of food, I started thinking about my own blog!!! But doubting my writing skills, I have been pushing it back for some time. But with a bit of encouragement from one of my close friends and a boosting jolt from my husband, I decided not to wait any further. I hope that everybody will enjoy going through and trying out the recipes.

When I first started depending on the Internet for my cooking, I came across many wonderful recipe sites and cooking blogs!! One thing I realised is that since we are being offered a lot of different versions of a single recipe on the net, we will be more inclined to try out the recipes if we know that the recipe has passed somebody else's cooking test ! A picture of the dish will definitely go a long way to aid our decision. My objective with the blog is to post some of my original recipes along with the recipes from the net that I have chosen after trying out a few of the choices available. In the case of recipes taken from the other sites or books, the actual source will be posted along with the recipe, with the tips that I found to be useful. I sincerely hope that my blog will be a further incentive for everybody to experiment with the already popular dishes ! Please post your comments so that I can improve and evolve the blog into something which will help others who need a bit of inspiration for their cooking.